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Hailed as one of the best contemporary poets writing in the English language, David Ferry meditates unsentimentally, in many of these powerful and often wrenching poems, on the dispossession of people afflicted by madness, homelessness, or other forms of "wildness." The voices in all the poems in this book demonstrate how, for each of us, there is no certain dwelling place. "David Ferry's "Dwelling Places" is a marvelous, extremely moving book, distinguished by Ferry's characteristic formal virtuosity, extraordinarily fresh and 'inner' translations, and a kind of driven anguished rage at both the social conditions in which human beings have to live and the mysteriously unchangeable tragedies of individual human lives. The translations amplify and deepen the contemporary scenes. I feel that in the future this will be perceived as a great book."--Frank Bidart "Not until I had read "Dwelling Places" several times did I see how ingeniously resourceful, ambitious, and admirably modest a book David Ferry has made."--"Boston Review"

Acknowledgments

Strabo Reading Megasthenes Dives

The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street People

Committee Civilization and Its Discontents

The Blind People

The Proselyte A Young Woman Goodnight

Nocturnal Abyss Name Of Rhyme

Epigram Autumn Garden Dog Horses

Unos Caballos Roof At the Hospital A Morning Song Of Violets Levis Exsurgit

Zephirus Herbsttag

The Lesson In the Garden Roman Elegy VIII

When We Were Children Mnemosyne Harvesters Resting Mary in Old Age Prayer to the Gods of the Night Envoi